"Shortly after our arrival in Kingston, we celebrated a Fourth of July party for the diplomatic corps and all Americans. I met countless times with the wives of our Consular staff to make sure everything would go smoothly. We hired a little donkey saddled with a pannier on each side filled with rum. Christopher led the little donkey around, offering our guests a drink which his older sister had prepared at the last minute with too much emphasis on the rum, as we discovered later. It is not surprising that the party was a huge success, the best ever given on American Independence Day we were told by many who attended. We were still happily celebrating when it became dark and we quite forgot to haul down the flag. Later in the night, we were reminded by one of the departing guests. At about the same time, I discovered that some of our staff had passed out from the leftover rum in the little donkey's panniers. A memorable evening!"
Mildred Teusler Ringwalt
Memoirs of a Foreign Service Officer's Wife 1938-1958
The Foreign Affairs Oral History Collection of the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training
